Labor Day Vacay!

My cousin Garrett & his wife Vanessa were able to come

last minute.  We're so glad they did.  These two 

are perfect "houseboating material", & are so much

fun to be around.  Love you guys-

Soft.  Orange.  Sand.

We just had to dig our toes in... it's not everyday

you get to step on something those three words describe.

This cop was a serious dummy.  Gotta' love Kanab.

What? What was that?  You like his Charley Chaplin 'stash?

The Loves of My Life

My Awesome Parents

My brother Blake

My brother Tyler

Random.

Here's Haven waving "bye-bye" to Nana & Papa... 

her heart was broken.

(In the picture above... just know that the golf cart driver closest

to the camera was mentally incompetent.  We had him take a picture

 of all of us together... (the only one the whole trip 'cause we didn't think

of it until everyone was about to leave.)  And we made the mistake of

having this bright ray of sunshine take our picture... we even asked him to

take two for safe measure... but as you can see, there isn't a picture of

us all together because Sherlock Holmes here didn't press the button.

And yes... I have asked several dozen randoms to take pictures of us from

time to time, you know... tourists even: asian, russian, french... 

nobody's ever NOT known how to press down on the button 

to actually take a picture.  Sorry... I guess I'm still a little miffed...)

Here's a sweet slide that we saw... I don't know who had the time

to make it... but I would have loved to go down it.  Flippin' sweet.

Pretty much everyone rocked a board behind the boat...

(me & my prego belly excluded.)

Here's Adrienne wakeboarding

All the other guys decided to try wake surfing for their first time.

Here's Tyler

Haven was the self-declared flag girl... she wouldn't put it

down so I guess it was a good thing for when people randomly

biffed it... she was ready to let other boaters know they

went down... 

Kinda like Logan did here.  

(I just had to include this one... it's too classic for words.)

(Not too bad for his first time doing any water sport, might

I add, to redeem his ego from the first photo.  We were all

pretty impressed.  Go Log!)

(There was another redemptive pic of Logan surfing here

however... I made the mistake of pressing the back button

which apparently on this application means NO RETURNING

the photo to the original location without having to delete and start

ALL over with the order of the pictures... lame.  

*Does anyone know a way around this?*  It's SOOO ANNOYING!  

I'll post another after I'm done with this one. Sorry this application's stone-age.)

Here's Blake... 

all 6'6'' of Garrett...

my soon-to-be 49 year-old Dad, who's still got it...

and the man who rocks the board and my world.  Go Greg.

We were on the hunt for ruins (which we didn't find this trip)

but we found the old Miner's Steps... and what do you know?

The guys had to check 'em out.  Shocker.  :)

TRUFF-ah-LICIOUS!!!

What do you need when you're blue?

I know CHOCOLATE works wonders for me, 

and my hopes are that the same will be true for my friend.  

That was my inspiration when I turned into a Martha Stewart-

 wannabe and decided to try and bake some desserts to at 

least try and cheer up my friend from the less-than-sunny-week

 she and her family have had.  There's only so much chocolate can do,

 so please just know that an adorable 2 year old is in need of your prayers.

Nutter Butter & Oreo Truffles

Nutter Butter & Oreo Cookie Truffles

1 bag Nutter Butter or Oreo Cookies 

8 oz. softened creme cheese

1 pkg Chocolate Bark for Nutter Butters or Almond Bark for Oreos

1 square of the opposite bark for drizzling

1. Mix ground Oreos and cream cheese until well combined. (I just put mine into my Kitchen Aid for 5 min on low while nuking the creme cheese.)  Roll into 1 inch balls and place onto baking sheet or tray.  Refrigerate overnight or until very firm.  (I say 1/2 an hour is sufficient.)

2. Melt chocolate according to package directions.  Using 2 little spoons, dip balls into chocolate and place onto parchment paper to harden.  Once dry, melt square of opposite bark and spoon into the corner of a Ziploc baggie.  Snip the corner of the baggie and drizzle the chocolate back and forth over the truffles.  Let dry.

3. This all sounds fine and dandy... seems easy enough right?  Wrong.  The only problem I ran into was my lovely little Smith's store didn't carry the "bark" or even any hardening chocolate coating except for in the produce section.  (I should have just stopped there... but vision of these chocolate truffles just wouldn't leave my pregnant chocolate-craving mind.) The milk chocolate one melted fine... but the white, not so well.  It was lumpy and nasty and wouldn't change consistency... I tried with two separate containers to no avail.  So... what you're seeing are really truffle-mishaps, but I just worked with what I had.  So I put the lumpy white chocolate on top of the Oreo spheres, and so they'd have a better consistency to bite into, I dipped the bottom of them into the chocolate.  So now you know why my recipe says one thing and my pictures are showing another... better luck with your white chocolate melting experience!  Let me know if you try these!  I'm bringing the leftovers to Powell... can't wait to see my family members faces when they taste these!  Greg & Blake are in love.

(This recipe made about 30 truffles.)

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

RICE KRISPIES + CHOCOLATE CHIP MOUNDS=

ONE OF THE BEST DESSERT DUOS OF ALL TIME.

My sister Summer and I have been baking quite a bit

comparing recipes, methods AND madness on the phone. :)

So here's what mine turned out like Summer...

not so hot seeing as I don't have the KING sized

muffin tins like you... but after tasting them... I'm 

not about to complain.  Now it's your turn... POST 'EM BABY!

It's a boy!!!

A peek into our Colorado week...

I have to admit that I was scared.  Scared to drive the 350

miles to the cabin in Colorado- just Haven and me.  Alone.  Not cool.

Luckily she was just short of a halo over her head and did

pretty darn good.  Unfortunately she only slept probably an hour total.

Amazingly though we only stopped once in Moab.  (I'm kind of

hard core when I'm driving... I just wanted to get there and 

thankfully Haven and her diapers were up for the challenge.)

  So these pictures mark the beginning 

of our week in Colorado:

As you can see... she LOVES hats...

playing with her cousins...

and making me laugh.

I have some of the most gorgeous nephews... ever.

-The Buzz in Honeyville-

Here's Haven, Lexi, Bryson & Landon checking out

 the indoor, glass-walled beehive.

LOVING time on the lawn mower and ANY and ALL attention 

she could steal from Papa Updike.  She would seriously BAWL

if he even thought about doing anything without her in the equation.

Getting kisses from Daddy before his ride.

Sorry... I just really like this one. :)

Daddy Updike MADE them wear helmets this year... much to their dismay.

I say FINALLY!  Figh-NUH-LEE!  I've been waiting for it to finally hit them

before the asphalt does.  I'm proud of our boys.  I know it was hard.

Haven & Grammy

(who she calls "Dah-mee" & has missed so much since we left...)

She LOVED this little bridge... we couldn't get her off of it.

She thought it was a "weeeee" which in Haven terms means a slide.

Heather was surrounded by her beautiful pouty faced kids

who were so distraught when Jeff left on the ride.

Grammy and Haven having one of their cute little moments

Haven loved playing with all the boys...

 and their Tonka toys...

and throwing the ball.  Who'da thought?

She loved playing with them all so much... she didn't care if it was raining.

Between the fun company of her cousins... the "weeee" bridge... and the boys

toys... she was in heaven.  Rain or shine she wanted to be outside.

Here she is with her beloved daisy headband that she calls her "HAT!"

Yes... the same hat that she had to wear the ENTIRE drive from

California to Utah with my parents while we were on our cruise.

Whatever makes her happy.

ROUGH RIDERS

I forgot to include this picture that Kylan took of all our 

Harley boys who although were depleted in number this year 

still look like a pretty intimidating bunch... or not. :)

(I love that none of them even know, or care, this is being taken.)

Annual Harley Ride 2008

The guys that went this year were: my father-in-law Jim, 

brother-in-law Jim, Jeff, (Steve was missed), Greg, Gary Knight, 

Jason and Jared Knight, Tom, Tommy, Doug, and Chris Grover 

and their bro-in-law Jeff, Mark Shady, and Ken and Kylan Lundeen.

(they normally have 20+ bikes but the Jensen's went hardcore to Sturgis,

and Randy, Aaron and Tony Knight were unable to come.)